I Walk the Line ♤ (gxg)

chapter 22: sway

Mark, wearing a black suit, opened the back door to the shiny black limousine as soon as August stepped out of the hotel.

"I am assuming you are the infamous August?" he announced as she drew near.

"I'm not sure about infamous, but I am August," she said, seeing his features more clearly as she approached. She noticed that he looked the same way that Jerry, Mr. Bennigan, and all the kitchen workers looked—polite but terrified somewhere behind those fancy uniforms and genial smiles.

She slid into the back of the limousine as Mark chuckled to her response. She watched him close her door and slide into the driver's seat. "It'll be about twenty minutes, more or less," he told her, looking at her through the rearview mirror.

August nodded in response, pushing her hair behind her ears as she looked around the spacious backseat of the limousine. She felt silly, as if she was playing pretend and none of it was even real. She would've never imagined, when she was tied to Willow's passenger seat and being abducted and taken halfway across the country, that she would be doing what she was doing then—dressed up on her way to a fancy ball in a limousine. A smile tugged on her lips at the thought of it all. That's what she was learning to do—laugh at the absurdity rather than dwell on it. She hoped Willow would learn to do the same.

Her fingers felt the fabric of her velvety dress as she watched the passing trees out the window as they drove down the driveway and out onto the highway. The trees eventually disappeared, so she just watched the full moon cast a luminescent glow over the Utah desert. They eventually passed the rock formation that her and Willow had visited, remembering how the cool but not too cool water felt on her fingers. She also remembered the warmth that flooded her cheeks when Willow told her she was going to protect her. She sighed, squeezing together the velvet folds of her skirt.

Twenty minutes passed, with no words from the chauffeur, and August began to become a bit worried. She didn't know this man—he could have been taking her anywhere. She was far from wherever Willow's protection was, as far as she was concerned; and this was a cause for great concern.

She was about to start really freaking out right as they pulled up to a large building with lots of people around, much to August's partial relief and partial dismay. She was glad that Mark proved to be an honest man by not kidnapping her, but she dreaded seeing all those people and even worse, being seen by them.

Mark quickly but gracefully got out of the limo and opened her door, saying, "We have arrived, madam."

August placed her hand on the handle of the limousine door for support, taking one step out and steadying herself before letting her other heel touch the asphalt road that they were parked on. She gazed over the yard and felt relief at seeing that they were right in front of a sidewalk that stretched all the way to the front of the building. It was quite a long way to walk in heels, but she was thankful it would be on concrete rather than ground.

"Thank you," she quietly told Mark as he got back into his limo, smiling at the girl before driving off.

August took a deep breath, feeling the cold December air nip at her ankles. She hadn't been outside at all except for that day on the roof, and it was during the middle of the day. It was now nighttime and twenty degrees cooler.

But she reveled in the cold. She loved the way it numbed the rabbit in her chest, or at least sedated him, for he only lightly thumped against her ribcage this evening. But as she walked down the sidewalk, passing many leering people who stared at her as if she were a sore thumb, the rabbit began to wake up.

Shadows danced across her figure as she walked under a few sparse trees that lined the sidewalk, interrupting the moon's unwavering gaze on her. She wanted to quicken her pace so she could finally be inside the building and away from the sharp cold that was now rattling her bones, but her heels limited her speed.